Dear Parent,
Welcome to the email series: Attachment in Parenting. For the next 6 weeks, you will receive an email touching upon important attachment topics that may show up in how you parent. Each email will be longer than normal emails.
I hope you will find hope and encouragement as you go through this series. If you ever want more support or education, please reach out!
💡Client Spotlight
During a session, one of my clients shared about feeling guilty about how she spoke to her child. She told me she snapped at her daughter over something small. Her daughter wanted her to stay in her room “for five more minutes” at bedtime, and instead of the patient, attuned response my client wanted to give, she felt her chest tighten. Irritation flooded through her. She said “no” more sharply than she meant to and left the room feeling like a failure.
Later, she sat with the question: Why did her simple request for connection feel so threatening and annoying?
The answer wasn't in that moment. It was in a memory from 30 years ago—of needing her own mother and learning that needing was “too much”. That closeness wasn't safe. She should handle things on her own.
Her daughter wasn't the problem. Her past was.
The Blueprint You Didn't Know You Had
Here's what most of us don't realize: the way we were cared for as children didn't just shape our childhood. It created a blueprint—an internal working model— for our adult lives. It tells us how relationships work, what's safe, and how to get our needs met (or not). This blueprint is the foundation that guides every relationship, especially your parenting.
This is what psychologists call attachment theory.
In the simplest terms: your early relationships with your caregivers taught you what to expect from people. Whether the world felt safe or scary. Whether your needs mattered or were a burden. Whether emotions were okay or dangerous.
Why is this important?
Because the blueprint is still running in the background when you interact with your own children.
When your toddler has a meltdown and you feel rage bubble up, that's the blueprint.
When your child says, "I need you" and you feel trapped or suffocated, that's the blueprint.
When you can't say no without feeling crushing guilt, that's the blueprint.
When your child's tears feel intolerable and you need to fix them immediately, that's the blueprint.
Your reactions aren't random. They're not character flaws. They're not proof you're a bad parent.
They're old patterns trying to protect you from something that hurt a long time ago.
This Isn't About Blaming Your Parents
Before we go further, I want to be crystal clear: this is not about blaming your parents or dredging up your childhood to point fingers.
Most of our parents did the best they could with what they had. They were operating from their own blueprints, shaped by their own childhoods. This is about understanding patterns, not assigning fault.
It’s possible you had "good enough" parents and still have an insecure attachment style. This isn't only about trauma or neglect. Sometimes it's about subtle patterns—a parent who was physically present but emotionally unavailable, a caregiver who was loving but inconsistent, a childhood that looked fine from the outside but left you feeling unseen, or a parent who expected you to be their parent.
The goal here isn't to excavate every wound. It's to understand the patterns so you can make different choices.
Why This Matters for Your Parenting
You might be thinking: "Okay, but I'm an adult now. Can't I just decide to parent differently?"
Yes and no.
Intellectually, you absolutely can decide how you want to parent. You can read the books, follow the Instagram accounts, learn all the scripts for balanced/authoritative parenting.
But when your nervous system gets activated—when your child's behavior triggers something deep—the blueprint (attachment style) takes over. You react before you think. You find yourself doing or saying exactly what you swore you'd never do or say.
This is why you can know the "right" response and still not be able to access it in the moment.
This is why you parent one way when you're calm and a completely different way when you're stressed.
This is why understanding your attachment style is so crucial.
You can't change patterns you can't see.
What You'll Learn in This Series
Over the next six weeks, we're going to explore:
- The four attachment styles and how they might be showing up in your parenting (Part 2)
- Anxious-preoccupied attachment: When your child's needs feel overwhelming, boundaries feel impossible, and you can't stop seeking validation that you're doing enough (Part 3)
- Dismissive-avoidant attachment: When emotions feel dangerous, closeness feels suffocating, and your child's dependency triggers your urge to create distance (Part 4)
- Fearful-avoidant attachment: When you swing between desperate closeness and terrified withdrawal, when love itself feels dangerous, and when your parenting feels chaotic and unpredictable (Part 5)
- Earned secure attachment: Learn how to develop a secure attachment in adulthood and how you can break these patterns through awareness, nervous system regulation, repair, and healing (Part 6)
Each email will include not just explanation, but practical, actionable strategies for working through your specific attachment pattern.
This series isn't about adding more to your plate or giving you another way you're "failing." It's about giving you the missing piece that makes everything else make sense.
It's about understanding why you react the way you do, so you can start to respond differently.
It's about breaking cycles, not through perfection, but through awareness.
The Hope in This Work
Here's what I want you to hold onto as we go through this series:
Your attachment style is not your identity.
You didn't choose the blueprint you were given. But you can choose to understand it. You can choose to work with it. You can choose to slowly, imperfectly, courageously rewrite it.
And every time you pause before reacting, every time you repair after you mess up, every time you do something different than what was done to you—you're already doing it.
You're already doing this work just by being here, by being curious, by being willing to look at the hard stuff.
Next week, we'll dive into the four attachment styles and help you start to identify yours. But for now, just sit with this:
Your childhood is still parenting your children. And that's not a life sentence—it's an invitation to heal.
Today's Takeaway: Your parenting reactions aren't character flaws—they're old patterns from your childhood blueprint and understanding them is the first step to changing them.
P.S. If reading this brings up big emotions or difficult memories, that's completely normal. Be gentle with yourself. This work is hard, and you don't have to do it alone. If you need additional support, please reach out to a therapist who specializes in attachment or contact me for a 1:1 consultation.
P.P.S If you’d like even more detail around this topic, I will be publishing a guide on attachment in parenting in the next several weeks. Follow me on Instagram for more info:
@theparentingspecialist
Next Time: The Four Attachment Styles
See you next week for Part 2.
Warmly,
Alison Potter
The Parenting Specialist
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